2020 Azbee Awards of Excellence

Category

All Content > Individual Profile > Northeast

Awarded to

Chris, Gaetano, Staff Writer: Ruth Singleton, Managing Editor

Entry details

On the trail of tax cheats: IRS Special Agent Paulina Rodriguez uses CPA skills to fight crime

Issue or publication date: Fall 2019/Winter 2020
Publication name: NextGen magazine
Publishing company: New York State Society of CPAs
Website home page: https://www.nysscpa.org/nextgen#sthash.cdOg9JLd.dpbs

Please describe the publication's mission and readership:

NextGen: The NYSSCPA’s Professional Development Guide is a magazine targeted to recently licensed CPAs; accounting professionals who are in the process of, or contemplating, taking the CPA exam; college accounting majors; and high school students interested in accounting careers. The mission of the magazine is to encourage young people to enter the profession—and to provide guidance to young professionals at all early stages of their accounting career path. Working in tandem with the NextGen program team at the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants (NYSSCPA), the magazine also promotes the benefits of NYSSCPA membership. Its content offers solutions for moving past the challenges professionals often face on their career paths—and invokes a sense of community. The articles focus on topics such as preparing for the CPA exam, achieving success in the job market, coping with workplace challenges, developing leadership skills, creating a positive workplace culture, adapting to the changing nature of the profession, and developing specialized practices within the profession. The magazine’s profiles focus on individuals who have achieved success by developing specialized practices. For example, the fall 2017 issue featured a Seattle-based CPA for the cannabis industry, and the fall 2018 featured a CPA who has established a solo practice in forensic accounting consulting.

Please describe the enterprising work that went into this entry and its significance or impact on readers:

Chris Gaetano has been a staff writer for NextGen magazine since its inception in 2014. In his profile of Paulina Rodriguez, he set out to introduce the magazine’s readers to a career option they may not have considered. Rodriguez is a CPA who decided to pursue a different path from the traditional one for accounting professionals. Rather than practicing at an accounting firm or in industry, she uses her skills to fight financial crime as a special agent for the IRS Criminal Investigation Division. Gaetano used his reporting skills to find a CPA working at the IRS, and he then conducted an in-depth interview with Rodriguez.

His profile offers a portrait of a professional who, after meeting with representatives from the IRS at a career fair, decided that she wanted to become a special agent and followed through resolutely. She had to wait for an opening to arise at the agency—she worked as a forensic accountant at the FBI in the interim—and then complete an intensive training program. While much of her work focuses on financial matters, such as collecting the evidence needed to prosecute tax crimes, there is also the criminal investigation side, including executing search warrants, conducting arrests, and carrying a gun. Gaetano observes, “While the accounting and law enforcement worlds may seem very different from each other, Rodriguez said that both require an eye for detail, a skeptical mind, an analytical personality, the ability to work both alone and on teams, and lots of patience.”

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